The use of perhexiline, a treatment used in Australia and New Zealand to treat heart disease, is proving promising.
Knowing that pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive, results from preclinical trials are promising.
They involved a drug used in Australia and New Zealand in cardiology, perhexiline.
The tumor eliminated in mice
Thus, the researchers conducted their experiments on xenograft mice (that is to say that the transplantation of a graft involves a donor of a biological species different from that of the recipient).
In combination with chemotherapy, they found that both elements had a beneficial effect against the tumor.
energy stress
According to the scientists, the combination of chemotherapy and perhexiline results in energy and oxidative stress which lead to the complete destruction of the tumour.
But the precise mechanism of this positive effect is not yet revealed, and will have to be after further research.
Hope in the treatment of an aggressive cancer
Be that as it may, these results come on top of those already encouraging from other studies on this cancer which is resistant to current treatments.
Thus and for example and only a few weeks ago, a personalized treatment based on messenger RNA gave good first results. Namely, the fact that for half of the 16 trial participants, in whom the immune response was detectable, there was no evidence of cancer recurrence 18 months postoperatively, while the median time to recurrence was 13.4 months in non-responders.